20 March 2004 - The Bombings in Spain Part 2

So, now coming up to a week after the election in Spain the result is well known and people have been exploring the reasons in the media for the Socialists surprising win. These discussions for the most part seem to be incoherent and confused and full of contradiction. One programme in particular was disappointing to say the least. This was a BBC (radio 4) programme called "The Moral Maze" which is supposed to be an intelligent discussion of the issues raised, but failed dismally to shed any light on these events. The emphasis of this programme is rightly on the Maze element and these people seem to be quite lost in that maze!

So, here is my attempt to diagnose the psychotic confusion that this programme produced:

The election win was presented as a victory for "alqaeda" and that the  Spanish people were in some way voting to appease alqaeda. Then in the next breath the contributors "witnesses" and panel alike explored the idea abstractly of whether alqaeda actually has a programme and agenda. The general consensus left totally unchallenged was the assertion that this agenda was totally nonnegotiable.

The only presentation of the agenda was the reading from a book by Sayed Qutb written in the 60's and more to do with his disillusions with socialism and his attempts to make Islam fit into his ideas of a radical worldwide ideology. His works are far from the inspiration of bin Laden et al. None of the panelists was informed enough to refute these notions. But that is not the big problem here.

If this election were, for the sake of argument, a victory for alqaeda, then we can assert something about their agenda. It would seem to be to retaliation for aggression done by the Spanish government in allying itself to the USA and the UK in their war on Iraq. The aim of the said retaliation would be primarily to change Spanish foreign policy and take it out of the Iraq war alliance. In this it clearly succeeded and in this alqaeda's aims would be no different from what many people and many countries seek. A return to international law and the UN charter where such aggressive wars are clearly declared to be illegal. Such aims are perfectly negotiable. It doesn't take a genius to see this. Even bin Laden's diatribes against the West set out a simple and totally modest negotiating position: "You will not have peace and security in your lands until you stop causing war and tyranny in ours". Talking about such obvious points is the taboo of the media. But these are facts. Ignoring facts and pretending that your chosen set of lies reflect the reality is practically the definition of psychosis. Either alqaeda's aims are negotiable and the Spanish population appeased alqaeda by giving alqaeda what it wanted, or alqaeda's aims are non-negotiable and the Spanish were not appeasing alqaeda. The only way to square this circle is to assert that the Spanish electorate were trying to appease alqaeda but they were deceived because although alqaeda has a stated clear and negotiable agenda, their real agenda can never be appeased. This is the real message given out by such discussions: These alqaeda people are simply mad, they hate our way of life and they come to "kill all the infidels". Of course, in reaching this conclusion despite the facts, you are being pretty mad yourself. But hey, don't look at my madness look at these mad people over there.

But there has been a real deception of the Spanish electorate. They didn't think get confused and deceived and start to think that alqaeda has negotiable aims. They didn't attempt to appease alqaeda. They were not moved by accepting the lie that alqaeda's aims are nonnegotiable. They did not get into thinking such paranoid psychotic thoughts. What happened was that they just got tired and fed up with lies their government kept producing. They just remembered how they had been led into a war based on lies despite 90% opposition in the population. As the incoming prime minister said expressing accurately the frustrations of the voters:

"You cannot organise a war based on lies".

When the attacks happened the Spanish government insisted that it was ETA who were responsible. They even got the UN to pass a unanimous resolution condemning ETA. This was seen as yet another grand lie from this lying government. The Spanish people were just sick of the lies and they kicked out the liars. The bomb merely gave the government another chance to lie which it took with both hands and the electorate had simply had enough.